1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for printing using a continuous roll sheet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In printing of a large number of sheets, such as printing in the photo print service, continuous roll sheets are used. In manufacturing the continuous roll sheets, to improve the manufacturing yield, end portions of a plurality of continuous sheets with lengths less than a required length may be attached to each other with a fixing material (hereinafter, referred to as a tape), such as a splicing tape, to form a roll with a required length. The continuous roll sheet has one or more taped splices (connected portions) at random positions.
An apparatus discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-239715 detects a tape using an optical sensor to detect a position of a splice, determines an area including the splice as a non-recordable area, and performs control such that printing is not performed onto the non-recordable area.
In printing high-definition photo images and the like, depending on slight differences in the types of the sheet (for example, the type of paper, the quality of paper, and the thickness of paper) to be used, the conveyance characteristics of the sheet change. The changed conveyance characteristics cause differences in the sheet conveyance amount and the sheet conveyance speed, resulting in differences in the print image quality. Due to the differences in the sheet conveyance characteristics before and after the splice portion of the continuous sheet, images having different image quality, such as hues and granularity, are formed. The print image quality change in the middle of the plurality of pages of the printed material such as a photographic album gives a strong feeling of strangeness to the viewer. To solve the problem, it is desirable to maintain the similar quality of the images sequentially printed on the continuous sheet. However, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-239715 discloses nothing about the problem and a method for solving the problem.